Spent most of last week in Austin Texas for a few different reasons (including work for the upcoming Paleo FX event). While I was in town I managed to get in a workout at Efficient Exercise on the ARX machines. As usual, the workout insanely intense.

It doesn’t appear that way at first glance, but that’s the truth. What’s ironic is how much more intense working out on these machines is, compared to what is traditionally considered “intense”; nonsense like “fitness bootcamps”, P90X, “zumba”, “spin classes”, and on and on.

Physical activities like those are hardly a drop in the bucket compared to 5 minutes on an ARX. Good luck explaining that to somebody neck deep in conventional ‘fitness’ wisdom.

In case anyone is wondering, I prefer the Omni machine presented at The 21 Convention over these more bulky siblings. This warrants a separate post, but the primary reasons are that I prefer doing a belt squat over a leg press, and with the Omni, you have full control over hand position with pulling and pushing movements.

On these machines you can adjust the handles, but only to pre-determined settings.

– Anthony Dream Johnson

Disclaimer: this is an independent review and is not endorsed in anyway by the author. I do not receive compensation for book sales resulting from this review.

 
I’ve been pushing to finish an ultra-long review of Congruent Exercise. “Ultra-long” because I was weaving in so many different ideas into the review, that are important to the discussion, but not absolutely necessary. Well, I’m about to be without internet access for a few days, and in light of those additional discussions not being absolutely necessary, I have decided to write a short and simple review, and release it immediately.

I’ve made this decision because it needed to be made — because there are things about this book that need to be said.

A book that says things about exercise, that absolutely needed to be said.

This 68 page manual is the greatest manual on exercise ever written, and it appears I am not entirely alone in this sentiment.

What is Congruent Exercise?

CE is the follow up manual to Moment Arm Exercise, or MAE, with updated ideas and discussion by the author, Bill DeSimone. Not only is the book up to speed with Bill’s latest conclusions, but the ideas within are condensed, simplified, and as easy to understand as they will ever be (unlike MAE which was not written with others reading in mind, but was instead written primarily for Bill’s personal use).

This simplification is done without compromise in any way or to any degree.

Is CE better than MAE?

Without a doubt, yes. Bill’s writing has improved dramatically, yet it retains his sense of humor which makes an “exercise book” actually enjoyable to read, not to mention, easy to digest. CE is a technical manual with revolutionary concepts that even the lay gym goer can grasp with little or no difficulty. This is the call sign of someone who is a true master of their craft/profession.

In addition, CE contains more and better explanations for suggested exercises, as well as improved picture quality. You are shown exactly what you need to be shown.

For the first time ever, Bill DeSimone also digs into “core work”, including the muscles of the spine and abdomen, which I suspect many have asked him about for years now.

If I own MAE should I buy CE?

Yes. Bill’s explanations have not only become clearer in some areas, but have quite literally advanced.

If I’ve seen Bill’s 21 Convention presentation, should I still buy CE?

Yes. Bill was limited to 90 minutes in that speech, given well over a year ago. That video is awesome, but this book has a lot more content than the video.

Why is CE the greatest exercise manual in history?

Because for the first time in human history, someone has brought biomechanics to the discussion of exercise, thoroughly, clearly, and definitively. That someone is Bill DeSimone.

Biomechanics as it relates to exercise is the single most fundamental concept possible to the discussion, yet up to this point, has been ignorantly and/or arrogantly dismissed. Yet, biomechanics is as fundamental to exercise as the discussion of oxygen is to breathing, food to nutrition, and the existence of organisms smaller than we can normally see, to human health.

Every article, word, text, video, and media item in existence on the subject of exercise, from every website, every book, and every interview, from every author in history, does not compare to the importance of the sum of knowledge Bill has formulated and presented in Congruent Exercise.

I mean that literally. While this may not have been the direct intention of Bill in writing the book, the most important personal conclusion I walked away with is that without biomechanics, there can be no discussion of exercise. To do so is complete nonsense.

And no one understands biomecahincs as it relates to exercise like Bill DeSimone. There is not a single other trainer, author, blogger, or “fitness celebrity” who is even remotely close to understanding, practicing, and celebrating the very simple discoveries Bill has made and presented in this manual (which is not to say other great minds in exercise do not exist — many do — but they are up to this point NEVER the ones that are popular).

Example:

The human spine is a pyramid, and loading it from the top down is antithetical to the basic function and design of the human body — ie, barbell squats are one of the most fundamentally ineffective exercises imaginable, in spite of all the lore and myths surrounding this magical exercise with “super duper benefits” that even in the best of circumstances, can never outweigh the reasons to completely and totally avoid this exercise, forever.

Compare that, a conclusion I walked away with from the book, to this bout of insanity — tantamount to putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound (discussing finer points of an exercise that is fundamentally flawed to the highest of degrees, completely in-congruent to the human body, and is outright dangerous to your health, short and long term).

Top comment

Looking at Rippetoe’s qualifications I’d say follow his advice to a T and you’ll be safer, stronger and healthier than you’d be listening to most anyone else.

Yeah, that, or you’ll fast track your way to becoming a quadriplegic.

And of course, don’t forget this for added insanity.

Closing comments

While I wish the book was even longer, and contained even more exercises, more discussion, and entire sections criticizing the insanity that is currently the status quo of the “fitness world”, I am utterly happy with this book, and give it my highest recommendation.

Bill DeSimone deserves a nobel prize.

In exercise, the buck starts and ends with biomechanics. Anyone that argues with this premise after buying Congruent Exercise is arguing with basic human physiology, and is likely a complete fraud, patently dishonest, or is just an idiot stuck in his ways “cause that’s what he’s always done and it hasn’t caused a problem” — yet.

Biomechanics is king. The fitness world is a sham. Congruent Exercise rocks, as does Bill DeSimone.

Buy the book here or contact Bill directly through the Congruent Exercise Facebook page.

You can also read an outstanding interview with Bill here, and watch his Youtube videos here, further explaining his ideas.

– Anthony Dream Johnson

Edit: I suspect people are going to go apeshit over my jab at barbell Slowking Mark Rippetoe, so I’ll quote myself in a comment just below.

People aren’t de-facto stupid for doing or recommending squats

They only become as such when they understand basic biomechanics, and continue to sell them (barbell specific squats), as a legitimate exercise. Keyword there is “continue” (as well as barbell).

Mark Rippetoe is someone who will promote barbell squats to the day he dies, even if it’s death by barbell squat.

 
As you might guess, both are great. I’ve since invited Dr. Mercola to The 21 Convention. While I was not able to get in touch with him directly, I did get in contact with his press agent. Highly interested at first due to both Mark and Doug being alumni speakers, but lost interest when he found out there was not going to be ~500 people at the event. This is highly irrelevant long term due to the high quality video production + online video distribution, but this is almost impossible to explain to people not intimately familiar with web video.

It’s tantamount to explaining how detrimental minimum wage laws are to the poor, or explaining why corporate tax is an illusion to an OWS protester. I may or may not try to get in contact with Dr. Mercola directly, who I think would be a great speaker. I especially like how much he hates — and rightfully so — the FDA.

– Anthony Dream Johnson

My most recent workout however was a clean 7 days — something I have not done in a while, perhaps 4-5 months. Needless to say, my performance was sub-par, I felt physically unprepared to workout on that day, and now 8 days later, I am still noticeably sore. My conclusion (more of a reminder having already known this from past experience), is that a week between workouts is not sufficient recovery for my body from my standard workout.

To the lay reader, this sounds absurd. A week between workouts isn’t enough?

Nope, not even for a 23 year old young male like myself, observably “healthy as an ox” — and I would gander to say, of more robust health than 99.9% of my peers (largely due to eating a personal “paleo diet“.

Why is this so?

For one, I think my recovery ability is dead center average. For two and in tandem, I have above average skeletal muscle mass, and practice an above average level of intensity in my workouts — not only because I train to failure but also because I’ve trained to failure for going on 3 years straight now…

The result of this fun combination is a lot of damage to the majority of my skeletal muscle mass — which there is a lot of given my size and body composition — having to be repaired by a middle of the road recovery ability.

And once repaired to the previous baseline, my body is then expected to adapt to the stimulus provided (the workout), and grow additional muscle tissue, before I wreck it again with exercise.

Needless to say, most people are not capable of this act in a 168 hour time period. Simply not going to happen. And so far as I can tell, I am one of those people. A la, as I continually and incidentally remind myself from time to time, I need upwards of 7 days to fully recover and grow from a standard workout. This is only more true if my workout was particularly intense, I got significantly less sleep/was under extra stress during the recovery window.

Admittedly, I used to hate this, because I enjoy working out, but these days, it doesn’t bother me. (Not nearly as much as short circuiting the purpose of exercising in the first place, anyway).

In any case, my recent slip up of working out @ 7 days (was convenient to do so) instead of 9-14, reminded me of comments made in Body by Science, by I presume, Doug McGuff M.D. (one of the authors).

In parting, a quick excerpt, emphasis added by me,

A Biologic Model

The process of growing new muscle can be likened to the process of growing new skin after a burn or cut. The injury is a stimulus to engage the body’s growth and repair mechanism to heal and repair damaged tissue. The next time you sustain an injury of this type, observe how long it takes your body to produce this new tissue…

… Building muscle is actually a much slower process than healing a wound from a burn. A burn wound heals from the ectodermal germ line, where the healing rate is relatively faster, because epithelial cells turn over quickly. If you scratch your cornea, for instance, it’s generally going to be healed in eight to twelve hours. Muscle tissue, in contrast, heals from the mesodermal germ line, where the healing rate is typically significantly slower…

 
This is Keith Norris’s full presentation at T21C 2011 on Health vs. Performance, Auto-Regulation, and Establishing Your Basecamp. At face value I think a lot of people would assume I personally disagree with much of Keith’s basic premises, but in fact, I do not.

There are things I disagree with of course, or in some cases, am ultra cautious about. One example is any form of an explosive movement. Another would be a barbell squat, for any purpose other than competitive lifting, where it is a required movement that you have to repeatedly practice to improve upon.

Come to think of it, and thanks to the work of Bill DeSimone and his Congruent Exercise, I am pretty convinced there is no worse exercise conceivable, that is commonly practiced, than the barbell squat. Out of what is accepted as exercise today, you literally can’t get anymore bio-mechanically antithetical to the human body — despite the “tradition” and popularity of this movement.

On the flip side, I actually find Keith’s discussions (in this presentation as well as elsewhere) really interesting, if not refreshing, specifically his own interests in the nervous system as it relates to exercise, sports, etc. This to me seems like an important topic that does not get it’s fair share of attention — much like Vitamin K2 relative to Vitamin D.

I am also 100% supportive of the term I believe Keith coined — a physical culturalist. This to me sounds pin point accurate for someone like Keith whose interests are not just in exercise or health, but are far wider, encompassing sport performance, recreation, and so on.

This term is actually exactly what we need more people to adopt.

BTW, there is an awesome post on Keith’s blog revealing his recent blood work. Doug McGuff MD’s comment should not be missed either.

– Anthony Dream Johnson

It occurred to me last night that major errors in conventional (as well as some unconventional camps) of important subjects, consist of errors of the same caliber, and are produced by the same fault in thinking.

Reductionism.

For the purposes of this post, reductionism shall be defined as a mode of thinking that reduces complex concepts and practices, spanning multiple sciences, down to a lesser number of sciences, not for any reason other than such person or group believes that eliminated sciences do not apply to Y topic, concept, or practice — when they in fact do.

The resulting conclusions being at best wrong, and at worst, dangerous.

Nutrition

The first science we will explore is nutrition. Human nutrition specifically. And more specifically, the broad criticism of any diet or individual who states that fat loss is primarily a hormonal and biological event, secondarily a matter of calorie intake reduction (by any number of means), and thirdly, if even considered relevant, calorie expenditure.

The criticism being that this hierarchy violates the first law of thermodynamics. Which, as is commonly accepted when applied to fat loss, means …

• Calories in = Calories out

In other words, fat loss is a matter of reducing the calories you take in, and expending more through “exercise” (which does not mean exercise when used in this manner, but is used as a substitute for any physical activity whatsoever, including sex, walking in circles, and as is my favorite to point out, defecation).

• Eat less + “Workout more” = fat loss

The problem however is that human beings are not rocks. Biology is a proudly ignored factor in this criticism of fat loss as it relates to a living organism.

While I am preaching to the choir here, I would like to point out that this very serious error in thought stems from eliminating biology from the following equation,

• Biology + Physics = Fat Loss

or making fat loss a simple

• Physics = Fat Loss

A la, complex biological events of living organisms are reduced to a matter of physics alone. The simple fact that we are alive, is literally ignored.

Psychology

The second science we will explore is psychology. Specifically, human psychology. And what is the conventional wisdom in psychology?

That man is an instinct manipulated puppet, free will does not exist, thought is automatic, and man’s life is only the sum of an inconsequential series of mindless responses to stimulus he has no control over.

This grand error is applied to varying degrees — dependent on an individual’s philosophical convictions — across the entire span of human life.

When applied to the broadest and highest degree possible, the conviction that man = an animal is the base conviction and condition being accepted.

Relevant to psychology, this is the reduction of human psychology to that of behavioral psychology.

The psychology of an animal lacking volitional consciousness, completely incapable of conceptual thought and entirely lacking the capacity for reason.

Thus, in conventional psychology, we have

• Physics + Biology = Human psychology

It is a fact of reality however that human psychology is a distinct science. The reality looks much more like this,

• Physics —> Biology —> Psychology

or

• Physics + Biology + Volitional Consciousness = Psychology

With the “psychology” of animals properly belonging in the realm of biology, not psychology.

This is why “evolutionary psychology” is largely a contradiction in terms when applied to human beings and produces conclusions that are absolutely incomplete.

The psychology of male/female intimate relationships is a subject that this is easily observable in. While it is true that our psycho-sexuality is rooted in the physical construction of being one gender or another, and the subsequent biological consequences this entails in a healthy human being, it is not the sum of the human experience in this arena.

To state such a thing is tantamount to stating 1+1 = 3, and that all male/female intimate relationships are automatic.

But nothing about being human — in the sense of what separate us from other animals — is automatic. Every ounce of what sustains human life is produced by the thinking mind.

Nothing is produced when man refuses to think. And man destroys when he actively abandons his mind and acts in contradiction with reality (and is destructive to the degree he is in conflict with reality, and the range his degree and power afford).

When man uses his mind, he forms positive relationships with the opposite sex that benefit his life as well as the life of his partner.

When man refuses to think, he forms a mindless relationship with the opposite sex that is at best, unfulfilling.

When man actively abandons his mind and makes choices that are in direct conflict with reality, he forms destructive intimate relationships that harm both him and his partner.

~~~

Coming full circle to the original and primary purpose of this section, real psychology is destroyed when human beings, capable of volitional consciousness, are reduced to instinct driven animals.

This is the key to how the science of psychology has been undermined: by gross reduction.

Exercise

The third and final science we will explore in terms of reductionist error is exercise. The error by reduction in conventional exercise science is different from that of nutrition and of psychology. The reduction error lies in the fact of reality that is,

• Nature to be commanded is to be obeyed.

In nutrition, I believe an approximate ratio of commanding to obeying nature, properly, is 20/80.

• 20% commanding, 80% obeying

This is due to the fact that nutrition is mandatory for life on earth. Exercise is not. Exercise — real exercise, not any random physical activity — is 100% optional. You do not have to exercise.

You have to eat, or you die, pretty quickly.

As a result, I believe in exercise, an approximate ratio of commanding to obeying nature, is properly and incidentally, the inverse of nutrition

• 80/20
• 80% commanding, 20% obeying

In other words, because exercise is entirely optional — and not mandatory – a LOT more depends on what you choose to include if one desires to create a successful exercise equation.

Where as with nutrition, a successful equation for dietary choices rests primarily on exclusion — what to exclude — a concept championed by Kurt Harris.

• 80% including + 20% excluding = Exercise success
• 20% including + 80% excluding = Nutritional success

The percents designating the importance of what is to be included and excluded relative to the potential benefit of achieving what is physically possible by personally succeeding in these sciences as a human being (while accepting the fact that the two sciences are not exclusive of and can in fact affect each other, positively or negatively).

Interestingly enough, another paradox (in adherence to reality) can be seen in the following equation,

• Exercise Success = Obeying physical structure (80%) +  obeying biology (20%)
• Nutritional success = Obeying biology (80%) + obeying physical calorie intake (20%)

Physics being more important in exercise (expressed as bio-mechanics), and biology being more important in nutrition, relative to body composition (expressed as quality of calories ingested).

~~~

The take home point of reductionist error in exercise is that looking to our ancestors for guidance in exercise — by examining and guesstimating their physical activities — is, in virtually all cases, a worthless activity, and in many cases a dangerous course to pursue. The only guidance that can be had from our ancestors is by examining the structural and perhaps biological evolution of our bodies.

The physical activities they were doing, are less than irrelevant. Yet, such is the focus of CrossFit.com, and all variations of activities that are suggested to be “paleo/primal” “exercises”.

So, how our ancestors gave birth, defecated, ran, and so on, might actually be of interest. But their activities that we wish to romanticize as real exercise, are no more worthy than examining a primitive tribe and trying to use that, in any way, as a valid foundation for how governments ought to be designed.

Such ideas are not even worth discussion.

– Anthony Dream Johnson

P.S. — The champions of what to exclude from your successful exercise equation would be a combination of Bill DeSimone and Drew Baye.

In fact, even labeling exercise as “proper” or “real”, or any such thing, only reveals how young the subject matter is, and how utterly ignorant the majority of those who claim to know something about it are. For example, children are not taught “real” addition, subtraction, and multiplication — or “intense” division.

Nor is anyone learning “the secrets of the alphabet” in grade school. Such ideas are nonsensical and ridiculous to us.

And the same attitude must be applied to exercise if the science is to ever drown out the voodoo-shamans of our day like Tony Horton, Jillian Michaels, P90Shit, Insanity Home Stupidity, and thousands of other witch doctors claiming to know anything valid and reality based about exercise.

Exercise is exercise, and then, there is everything else.

And the fact of reality is: Arthur Jones figured out exercise decades ago.

• Brief
• Intense
• Infrequent
• Safe
• Purposeful

Anything outside of these bounds is not exercise. It might look like exercise, sound like exercise, and even feel like exercise, but it is not exercise – no matter how many millions of people say it is, claim it to be, preach it as such, sell it as such, or perform it on Youtube with a Flipcam and “thumb it up”.

People are entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts. None of these factors have any bearing on what exercise is and is not.

And it’s time to stop dumbing down exercise for the masses.

• “Cardio” is not exercise
• Running a marathon is not exercise
• “Crossfit” is not exercise
• Sports, of any kind, are not exercise
• Taking a shit is not exercise

These physical activities, random and contextual as they may be, are not exercise, and will never be exercise. They all carry varying degrees of exercise effect, sure, but exercise effect, irregardless of the degree, is merely a derivative concept of exercise.

What we are after is exercise — with an absolute respect for biology, bio-mechanics, and reality.

The reality of being human, and what our bodies need and require to achieve their best and highest physical potentials — nothing more, and nothing less, with no contradictions possible.

In a sense, a net positive physical activity that can be performed by virtually the entire human population throughout the total course of their lives that actively and continually pushes the body of an individual closer and closer to it’s peak potential without cultivating unnecessary cumulative internal damage to the body, that in a long enough time span will FORCE any individual to cease their exercise activities partially or completely as a direct consequence of their sum exercise activity.

THAT, is in large part, exercise, and it is 100% antithetical to mainstream “exercise” thought, lore, and practice.

~~~

Coming full circle, it’s time to stop defending high intensity training as a bastard branch of exercise science. It IS exercise. Other physical activities can have net positive effects, including exercise effects. So it would be accurate to say that other physical activities have the potential to produce net positive effects on the human body and even mind. Walking, sex, and non-insane stretching and Yoga come to mind.

These things, no matter their similarity to exercise, cannot be honestly classified as exercise. And outside this comparatively small range of activities that can benefit our lives, lies the huge range of activities falsely posing as exercise, that are simply not exercise – many of which are violently and patently unsafe, if not outright stupid if being performed as a means of exercise activity.

(If you’re performing unsafe physical activities for other reasons, that is your own decision to make for your own reasons. Just know that no matter how many millions of people bitch, moan, complain and cry, those activities will never be exercise, nor can those activities be made fundamentally safe by tweaking superficial aspects of them).

End rant. Read Drew’s post.

– Anthony Dream Johnson